I haven't seen many Monarch butterflies this summer.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

Yesterday, I spent the drive home from work having a meltdown over the subject of human overpopulation.

When I got home, it just happened that there was a thread here at DU on the subject of social pressure to have (birth your own) children.

Sure, every day, I see the continuing sprawl. I see traffic snarls in villages that, 10 or even 5 years ago, were easy to navigate. It's become rather automatic for me to suppress that awareness; it's our innate survival mechanism whereby we censor our own thoughts because the reality is too overwhelming.

It's monarch butterfly migration time now, and there are far fewer than I remember 5 years ago... I was on the highway and saw several Monarchs struggling to flutter south--barely making it across, struggling against the wind impact from speeding vehicles. I was plunged into such deep sorrow.

This time of year, there used to be hundreds of wooly bear caterpillars around too, out here in the country... I haven't seen any this year yet, and saw almost none last year.

Honey bees... I saw less than I could count on two hands this summer.

But I've seen plenty of Babies Я Us stores.

****

The time for protestations that bearing as many children as you want is a "god" given right is OVER.

By our SELFISH attachment to our romanticized notions and biological urges, we ARE killing all other species who are unable to adapt to living in the polluted shadow of our human activities.

"Selfish" is NOT declining to reproduce your gene complement; it is demanding that every other living being on the planet take a back seat to your need for more, more more babies.

Yes, my opinion pisses off many people, but I don't care anymore. Admitting responsibility for the reality of our continued expansion and its effects on the planet is more important than anyone's protest that they don't like hearing about it. I've been called sick, twisted, ignorant and all other manner of unpleasantries for speaking bluntly about the subject. Pretty good indication that the issue needs to be taken out of the closet.

Perhaps some of us here know of the famous experiments by J.B. Calhoun investigating the effects of overpopulation in rat colonies:

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/29/obituaries/j-b-calhoun-78-researcher-on-effects-of-overpopulation.html
In a 40-year career, mostly at the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Calhoun demonstrated that as population density increased, social behavior degenerated.

Among other findings, he developed the concept of universal autism -- in which all members of the last generation of mice in an increasingly crowded environment are incapable of the social behavior that would allow them to produce the next generation. And he described a phenomenon in which some mice become "beautiful ones," maintaining their physical appearance, but doing little else, as the population swells.

In one of Dr. Calhoun's experiments, a square steel box, nine feet on each side, contained 2,600 mice, about 16 times what would be considered normal density. He determined that rodents rapidly developed a hierarchy when thrown together in such huge numbers, with those closest to the food supply growing most rapidly and, because of their size, assuming higher social status.

Here's a highly informational article, from the UK Guardian:

Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts
Conservationists say rate of new species slower than diversity loss caused by the destruction of habitats and climate change

For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve, one of the world's experts on biodiversity has warned.

Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the "sixth great extinction" of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.
more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/extin...

*******
snip from: http://www.continuum-hypothesis.com/population.html :

In high school biology class we grew a bacteria colony on a Petri dish. I smeared the agar and put the dish in an incubator. After a couple of days there were some colored dots - bacteria multiplying and consuming the nutrients. I forgot about it for a few days, and when I opened the incubator again the dish was covered with a thick gray scum - the bacteria had consumed all the agar and died.

There are plenty of individual human geniuses - Newton, Gauss, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Einstein - but as a species we're like the bacteria on the Petri dish, controlled by our individual drives to survive and reproduce. In a way, we're more foolish than bacteria: we use our intelligence to try to pack a few more of our kind into our Petri dish, thinking we can outsmart nature. This foolishness may destroy us.

The central problem facing Earth is human overpopulation. This creates a chain reaction of consequences that are ruining Earth, are disrupting the natural processes that produced life, are causing massive extinction of non-human life, and in the worst case could lead to the extinction of human life. Social problems - injustice, economic inequality, genocide, cultural extinction, etc. - exist and should be addressed. But they're insignificant compared to overpopulation. The overpopulation problem will eventually solve itself, as it did in the Petri dish. Is a better outcome possible? Considering human nature, probably not. But we have to try anyway.

If this little post encourages ONE person to consider limiting family size, to adopt if they want a large family, I will have accomplished something worthwhile.

I realize this subject is wildly unpopular and that I WILL get flamed. I may even get tombstoned for making people mad. If so, so be it. I intend to not bother replying to those who would flame me with ridiculous accusations that I am sick, a psycho, or that my position would extinguish the human race.

[Drale]

1. unfortunately

they seem to be in trouble, but fireflies were in trouble a few years ago and they seem to be making a comeback lately so who knows.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. I suppose there will always be micro environments...

that survive if they can be protected enough from human destruction. Some animals and plants will survive in those niches, but they remain threatened by their own mobility and by the needs of growing human population which ALWAYS overrules.

I don't think fireflies migrate, so they would be less affected by widespread changes. I think declining pesticide usage has driven the resurgence of fireflies. We live way out in the country where aside from agriculture, almost no one uses pesticides on their property.

[Brickbat]

2. I've seen more than usual.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Regarding Monarchs, funny you should mention this.

My sister in Houston has butterfly plants that the Monarchs use as caterpillars for food. Every year, the plants are totally eaten. This year, she said they have not been touched. She found one tiny cocoon, when she usually has bunches. They are saying that the problem was the winter last year with heavy freezes in Mexico where they migrate. So hopefully it is not the overpopulation of humans (although that is a problem in all respects) causing the lack of Monarchs, and it is just a natural cycle of weather in Mexico.

On a more upbeat note, I have seen several of the butterflies here in PA.

[KittyWampus]

10. What happened> those forests where butterflies migrate to have gotten so small due to clear-cutting

there aren't enough trees over a large enough area to buffer the cold when it freezes. Thus butterflies freeze to death.

Heart breaking.

I noticed last week there were merely dozens of Monarchs getting ready to migrate when there used to be thousands.

[XemaSab]

35. Milkweed

It's a pretty plant, and happy in the yard. :D

[a kennedy]

4. We've seen what we'd consider a "normal" amount....

3 - 5 a day. Now one year our newly planted birch tree was just covered with them. We took several pictures at the time and the tree looked like it was orange and black....just a ton of them, I think it was in 1998 or so. don't know the reason that year why we had so many and on one tree, and it hasn't been like that since but this year, the number of them seems to be pretty normal. They are so beautiful.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

6. I'm glad to hear that! I do wish I'd chosen a different title, though

since the Monarchs were a segue into a larger subject.

My whole point seems to have gotten lost. Sigh... poor labeling on my part.

Still, I AM happy to hear that you and a few others are seeing them. :)

[EC]

7. I've had tons of them here in southwestern Wisconsin

especially around my coneflowers and nasturtiums. In fact I was just thinking the other day that there have been a lot of them this year...

[B Calm]

15. I know the windshield of my freightliner has seem plenty of them.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

8. I tried to re-title this, but the editing period ran out. My point is human overpopulation.

I wish I retitled this post because Monarchs butterflies are not the prime point I wanted to make, yet most replies are focusing on that. Sorry for my poor original choice of title.

[Greyskye]

9. I did my part.

I opted not to pass on my own genetic material. Instead I'm passing on my life philosophy to my stepson, who has been in my life since he was 15 months old. He's 12 now, oh what a journey!

And incidentally, we just noticed a lot fewer dragonflies this year in our neck of the woods. And I mean a lot fewer.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Excess population density is what triggers the conversion of some grasshoppers into locusts.

Too many mouths, not enough food -- time to migrate!

Where would humans migrate TO ?

[pitohui]

12. grass hoppers are grass hoppers, locusts are locusts, one species can never become another species

the famous "locust" that killed so many farms in america, the rocky mountain locust went extinct (we don't know why) before any of us on DU were born, i think 1880s but don't recall now...it can be researched tho

[eppur_se_muova]

13. It's described in the book "Locust", by J. Lockwood

http://www.powells.com/review/2005_01_16.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZJD-s_3dAKQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jeffrey+Lockwood+locust&source=bl&ots=yTVE1ua6Ia&sig=bCRT_XgDVLQ1OqT-SVmgQJlrKtM&hl=en&ei=L3-dTJ-ENMOqlAfegZntAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=grasshopper&f=false

Locusts are grasshoppers that occur in dense migrating swarms. ... They also characteristically occur in periodic plagues, disappearing during the intervening recessions. The discovery that was central to understanding how this happens, and from which all modern attempts to manage locust problems derive, was made by a Russian entomologist, Boris Petrovitch Uvarov, in the early years of the twentieth century. ...

Observing an infestation of the Migratory locust, Locusta migratoria, Uvarov was surprised to find among it specimens of another grasshopper, quite different in shape, colour and behaviour, Locusta danica, which had not been present before the infestation. More surprising still was that there were intermediate forms between the two. From his detailed observations and the experiments of a colleague, Vassily Plotnikov, Uvarov deduced that the two species were one, with the capacity to transform itself from a sedentary, solitary grasshopper to a gregarious, migrating locust and back. The stimulus for this is physical crowding, which occurs in areas, now known as "outbreak areas", which may be very restricted, but have particularly favourable ecological conditions for the species. During recessions, the locusts survive in the solitary phase, but successful breeding leads to higher densities and transformation to the gregarious phase. The locusts then migrate in swarms to cause a plague in the much wider "invasion area". Experiments by the South African entomologist Jacobus Faure showed an identical phenomenon in the Brown locust, Locustana pardalina. Uvarov's theory not only provided an explanation of the periodicity of locust outbreaks, but also offered a strategy of preventive control by which the solitary phase could be monitored and transformation to the gregarious phase nipped in the bud. ...

[hughee99]

14. If I understand correctly, all locusts are grasshoppers.

Some species of short-horned grasshoppers are called locusts.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

20. and, in some areas, cicadas are called locusts

that would account for some confusion as well.

[Contrary1]

16. I've seen more Monarchs here in Indiana this summer...

than I have in many years. Other butterfly species too. Not too many bees though. Maybe their migratory habits are changing due to global warming?

I'm sorry to hear that you missed seeing them. If it is any consolation to you, I was thrilled to have them in my back yard again.

[woo me with science]

34. We also have had more butterflies this year than ever before.

They are constantly in the yard. I have never seen anything like it.

[csziggy]

17. As town moves towards and around our farm, we see less wildlife

When we first moved here thirty years ago, we had otters, alligators, wood storks, white ibis, bob cats, lots of song birds - even one possible sighting of a panther by the county forester. Then the hundred acres to our south was developed into "ranchettes" and the two hundred and fifty acres to the east followed suit. I haven't seen an otter or bob cat in twenty five years. The wood storks still fly overhead, but their nesting area has moved so they do not come by as often. We do still have deer, foxes, wild turkey and recently have heard coyotes in the area, but the variety of song birds has decreased.

The bluebirds are doing OK and the butterflies are actually doing pretty good, but I planted a field of wildflowers over the new septic tank drain field and all kinds of flowers to attract them and the hummingbirds. This year I did not see the first honey bee until August - last year I saw the first ones in July - but there are a lot of them right now. They seem to like the beggar weed flowers best, so I am not cutting them down even though I hate the stickers that spread from them. If the bees prefer them, I will leave the weeds.

But the local wildlife is seriously compromised by the fools that "move to the country" and then promptly convert their surroundings to suburbia. The "ranchettes" are two to four acres - too small to really keep a horse or livestock on, even if the HOA allowed it. Too big to really be a yard, they end up being clear cut and mowed into mini-golf courses or sports fields that are never used for anything.

I worry about what will happen to our farm when we die - we, well I, chose to not have children, so I can't count on an heir to maintain it as the part horse farm, part wildlife refuge as we have. Maybe I will work out something with one of the wildlife groups to have it go to them when I am gone. We are at the head of a stream that is considered an important wildlife corridor so having our piece preserved would be very attractive to the conservation groups.

See, you don't have to convert me - I already made the choice and have been happy with it.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

26. you and I are of the same mind!

I knew long ago I didn't want kids, and have been very happy without them. Did have a period of a few years when I and all the women in my dept at work were of childbearing age, and I was jealous of the special attention. Sure never envied the follow up to all the expectant cooing and nest building, though!

We live on a beautiful piece of land too. It's a lot of work, though and my hun does most of it (lucky he likes that!).

When "that time comes", I have no kids and neither does my hun (thank god), so I'll be looking into either selling to someone equally committed to wildlands, or to a conservation group.

[csziggy]

33. I've never really understood the urge to pump out a lot of kids

I watched an aunt go through multiple pregnancies, several miscarriages, and a nervous breakdown - then watched her deal with six children. That completely quenched any desire I might have naturally had to have kids.

While hubby makes a terrific uncle, he has no ability to discipline people or animals. If the two of us had had children, he would have been the loved father and I would have been the evil mother.

I'm now past being able to do the work on the farm. When we bought this place, it was a pig farm. The previous owners had brought in garbage to feed the pigs and the place was a mess. We spent several years hauling off trash and turning it into a horse farm. Ten years ago my body started giving up on me and now I can barely get around to appreciate it. We're lucky that a really nice family has taken over the maintenance on the farm portion.

We have a upland ridge where the pastures and hardwoods are, then thirty acres of environmentally sensitive wetlands that are in mixed growth forest. With the mix of habitat, this piece of land is a great place for wildlife.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

44. omg...your poor aunt

repetitive drudgery and endless "conversations" about..... what children talk about...
plus the cash drain....

nope I just can't see it.

So sad to see women fall into the romanticized trap (yes some truly do love it, and to them, props). But it's not for everyone. The one-sided fairy tales spun endlessly about the indescribable joys of motherhood seem like steaming crap to me.

At least women have more choices open to them (errr, if they are in a position to get good education---but I digress) and the social pressure is slightly less than it was generations ago.

[AdHocSolver]

18. The problem is not population per se, but the economic life style.

The huge, and technologically unnecessary, burning of fossil fuels at an unsustainable rate is one example.

The "automobile culture" and suburban sprawl drive that issue. The results are pollution of the air and water, global climate change, the destruction of many species, the poisoning of the earth and water, and numerous wars for scarce resources.

Then there is genetic engineering of food for profit, another technique that may kill off many important species sometime in the future.

Then there is the ideology of certain religions that suppresses the use of birth control, the use of which would be a big help in limiting population growth.

Just complaining that there are too many people is ignoring the economic, religious, and cultural issues that make a large population problematic.

[nightgaunt]

21. Just ignoring population which is the basis for all other problems is blind.

Population is the basis for all other parameters of survival. Energy use, waste production, food consumption, water consumption, living space, resource use, forest cutting; burning etc. Without this problem all others would be more manageable. Too bad that the would-be owners of us, the oligarchs want it that way. They can use all the calamities that are happening and will happen if nothing is changed. As the climate becomes more stressful and harsh the implementation of harsher political and theocratic measures will befall us. (It happened regionally during the "Mini Ice Age" in Europe.)

Controlling that would have helped us all if we had done so about 200 years ago. Too late. So we must do other things including a severe limit on reproduction---especially among the materially wealthy (& wasteful) for they are primary causes of our problems. Over half of the present human population, some 4+ billion people consume so much less than the other 2 billion. Just imagine of we leveled such consumption among the 6.7 billion people? Then we would see just how strained the planet really is. Now if we upped consumption for all the people to equal us, we would need somewhere between 5-8 more earths to accommodate them!

It is the richer countries that caused it but the poorer ones who will pay the steep and heavy price first and longer before the rich ones will. That is the ultimate and last crime of crimes.

The USA needs to be the beacon but it isn't. Germany, China(!) and several others are instead. We can still be so but it will be an uphill fight every step of the way.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

29. Thank you nightgaunt, for an excellent factual analysis!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. Maybe they changed to a republic?

Sorry. I'll go away now.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

28. ....

ok, I kind of hate myself for being so disrespectful---I've got nothing against the Queen!!! It's just that, this was too funny to pass up.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

40. ...are you sure?

http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/09/24/report-queen-elizabeth-tried-to-use-public-aid-fund-to-heat-her-palace/

[BlancheSplanchnik]

43. oh my....

I had no idea.

That's unseemly.

:(

[spanone]

22. we've had loads of 'em here in tennessee

[boomerbust]

A few Monarchs

Dut thousands of yellow sulphurs.

[boomerbust]

23. A few Monarchs

But thousands of yellow sulphurs.

[SidDithers]

24. I saw 2 flying above the crowd at the Blue Jays game this afternoon...

it was very strange.

Sid

[BlancheSplanchnik]

31. I don't know what the Blue Jays are...

so I can't really picture the scenario, but.....

the few that were fluttering above the traffic made me so sad....the fragility in contrast to the relentless steel on wheels, the effort it took to keep flying through the air currents whipping violently around them...they weren't high enough to survive trucks and tall vehicles; glad I didn't have to see that. It was sorrowful, slightly surreal with a low deep golden sun and long cool shadows on a beautiful warm sunny evening.

[SidDithers]

38. The Blue Jays are the Major League Baseball team that plays in Toronto...nt

Sid

[B Calm]

39. Another Beck MIRACLE!

[-..__...]

25. Black Swallowwort...

has had an effect on the Monarch population.

Is it a factor or problem in your area?

Who knows.

It's a particularity invasive vine that grows incredibly fast... I know because the stuff has been growing in my backyard like crazy and choking out the morning glories and grapes vines I planted.

Black swallowwort was introduced to this country as a garden plant from France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. A perennial vine with twines 3-8 feet high; Black Swallow-wort comes from the Milkweed family. It has been noted predominately for its stunning deep purple flowers with petals covered in fine white hairs. The flowers are small and resemble a five-pointed star. But contrary to urges to maintain its beauty and let the plant thrive, it is an invasive weed that threatens native plant habitats in America. In has been infesting forests, grasslands, and savannas across the country.

Not only is it choking out other plants but there is also concern for the monarch butterflies mistaking it for milkweed. Unlike milkweed, Black swallowwort does not support Monarch butterflies larva. Once having eggs laid upon it, Black Swallowwort releases a poison that infects the larva and kills them. Not only are the butterflies endangered but this decreases biodiversity and will change many habitats that depend on having the limited diversity they still possess

http://aib.eloicollective.com/IDESN_3110_fall09/jfletch3110/Black_swollowswort/index.html

[BlancheSplanchnik]

30. oh no...no I don't know about that one

:(

Well, as nightgaunt explained, the stress we put on the environment is and will continue to show in myriad ways.

I don't know if black swallowtail has gotten here yet. The ash trees are threatened though--Ash Borer Beetle (if I have the name right). That's not Monarch related, but this thread wasn't intended to focus only on them.

[chillspike]

27. I think they are in nj

i've seen a lot of them here...at least i think they are monarchs.

[madinmaryland]

32. Interestingly, I have been out hiking the last two weekends and there

were a whole shitload of Monarch butterflys.

[Odin2005]

36. there were a lot of them around here (Fargo) this summer.

We are one one of their traditional migratory routes.

[Canuckistanian]

37. I was just thinking about that post today

And also something someone said on the radio about a childless couple being "selfish" about not wanting to have kids.

I thought, "Whoa, considering the damage that overpopulation has done to our planet, REFUSING to have kids is the greatest gift you can give to mankind"

I REALLY don't understand the disconnect between people complaining about the declining ecosystem, yet wanting to have 4 or 5 kids. ESPECIALLY kids in North America, where every person consumes FAR beyond their average "footprint" of the rest of the world.

We need to reduce the world's population, period. No, scratch that.

We HAVE to reduce the world's population - or future generations will have their numbers reduced FOR THEM by starvation, loss of food or war.

China had the right idea with their "one child policy" - it saved them from over-running their own food supplies, while maintaining a worker base to support society.

We may HAVE to make the same decision in the far future - in order to save the deaths of MILLIONS - if WHEN the current rate of population outstrips our ability to feed the masses.

[northernlights]

41. When I moved here (Maine) I had tons of Monarchs

this year, not a single one. Very few other butterflies, either. Gorgeous, warm, long summer. Plenty for them to eat here.

Very low bumblebee count too, compared to normal. And I only saw one of my orangebutt bumbles. :(

[marzipanni]

45. My dog was poking her nose at a big orange carpenter bee in our back yard, so I called her off

She tries to bite them when they are in their death throes, but is both curious about them and wary of them since they are spinning on their backs and buzzing loudly.
I had never seen any but the big black ones that crawl into the holes they made in our arbor. I googled 'golden-orange bee' and found out they are male carpenter bees.
http://botany.00server.com/carpenter_bee3.html

[Skidmore]

42. That's because they've all been in our village.

We have had just thousands of them this summer. Large butterflies hanging like ornaments from the trees and flowers. I've even seen a bunch that look likem Monarchs but are pale yellow in color.